47
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
47 points (88.5% liked)
Ask Lemmy
40816 readers
1437 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm not a native English speaker so keep that in mind, but desiccated sounds like "already dead because of dehydration" to me.
I think that's right. I would read it as hyperbole to refer to something still alive as desiccated, for sure. If you meant it literally, I wouldn't think of something that is even just dead but like, dried up and leathery, too -- if you're talking about a desiccated cow, I'm thinking more "beef jerky" and less "someone get the vet, and hurry." There are more natural options elsewhere in the comments; I offered mine more as "this is the more well-known word using that root" than "this is the most natural word a native speaker would produce."
I understand and I didn't write that because I'm arguing. I was just stating how it sounds for me. When I see the word desiccated I imagine something like someone died in an arid place and stayed there for some time. Though it's not a word that I encounter a lot.
That's because desiccated is past tense. The other forms would be dessicate, dessicates, and desiccating. The "I'm starving to death" would be "I'm desiccating to death"
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying it! I guess I only saw that word in its past tense in real life.